This new grove was going to be a problem. Liv huffed, the metal spikes on the shoulders of the jacket clinking soundlessly with the motion. Without the grass to expand her borders the cheap way, all she could do was manually push them outward. If not for the truly LUDICROUS amount of SP regen this many trees would get her, she’d have been sorely tempted to just see if she could go around it.

But the trees here had to number in the hundreds, all densely packed together too. Even if her maximum pool didn’t increase as much, that much regen would likely have her refilling her reserves in minutes as opposed to hours. At least during the day. That pot was just too sweet to pass up.

So she continued pushing westward, pushing a ten-foot wide swath in seven-foot increments every few hours. She hoped to find the source of those little fungal roots soon; something she could claim and replicate herself in order to save on this expansion effort. What she was discovering so far was that the further in she moved the larger the trees were, causing broader expanses of bare, shaded soil to appear between them. She’d just discovered a larger clearing where a few faint dapples of fading daylight managed to pierce through to the soil below when an uncomfortable feeling licked its way up her spine.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and she whirled to see what was behind her. The distinct impression of being watched from the shadows dominated her senses. Almost immediately the formerly familiar sensation became foreign. The sense of ‘being watched from behind’ wasn’t usually grounded in an objective direction, yet as she turned Liv felt the impression of ‘presence’ remain as steadfast as a stone. Eyes that had widened in fright now squinted in confusion as Liv looked back and forth, feeling the sensation slide across her mind’s eye as surely as a compass.

Starting back towards her core, she moved cautiously until she heard a familiar faux bird call. Her shrubs had found something! Sliding between tree trunks, the athletic specter reached the ledge and coiled her long legs beneath her. With a mighty spring, Liv launched herself across the ten feet of water and came down running.

“DON’T BE CULTISTS. DON’T BE CULTISTS. DON’T BE CULTISTS.”

Liv hoped her silent chant could at least be heard by whatever gods still gave a shit. She lengthened her stride as the trees thinned, charging across the top of the second stream before finally skidding to a halt next to Giermund’s pond. The first good sign was that her favorite mangrove hadn’t moved an inch. The acid-scarred guardian seemed to be passively observing the newcomers while absorbing the last fiery rays of the setting sun.

Six figures stood on the eastern shore of the pond, five of which, to her intense relief, appeared to be lizard people. The sixth, she discovered, was a stone statue that had certainly not been present when she left that morning. Judging by the ropes and such still tied to it, she guessed they had just finished erecting the thing, and now one of them was lighting a campfire.

Further inspection of the strange new gift was forestalled, however, when Liv got a closer look at who had delivered it.

“KERMIT!!”

The pond rippled happily with her exclamation as she dashed up to the one-armed lizard man. There was an exciting moment when he turned to look at her, but Liv quickly realized he was actually just facing the sound of the moving water.

“Dude! You’re alive!” Liv didn’t even care if nobody knew she was there, she was just overjoyed to see a familiar face. “You made it, you absolute LEGEND!!” She cheered, causing another burble from beneath Giermund’s roots.

Oblivious to her commentary, ‘Kermit’ gave a low bow towards the middle of the tiny pond. The other four glanced between each other and then followed suit. Formalities seemingly concluded, her asymmetric acquaintance turned back to the others and began to speak animatedly. The language was still gibberish to her, all hissing clicks and glottal stops.

Kermit ducked low, undulating his tail as he spoke. His guttural narration dropped to a low, hollow whisper as his good arm stretched out to sweep across the clearing where the fire was starting to crackle to life. Liv found herself not even caring that she didn’t understand a single word, the art of a well-told story crossed that boundary for her. She just crossed her legs and sat at his feet to watch the tale unfold.

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Gesturing to his eyes, he cast his clawed hand outward again with an expression of a hunter about to pounce on prey. Then the breathy syllables surged into a furious snarling cry, punctuated by the tip of his scaly tail slapping the water and sending a spray of droplets over the ‘empty ground’ where Liv sat. She stared upward, her expression tumbling from the precipice of enraptured innocence into a haunted realization.

/Flecks of water fell slowly all around her./ Kermit mimed the explosive upward surge, his empty hand pulling up and back- /holding his spear aloft like it was a lightning bolt from Zeus rather than a flimsy sharpened stick./

A stream of incomprehensible exposition must have painted quite the picture for the others, but Liv couldn’t drag her eyes away from the one-armed warrior as he undulated, and moaned in an impression of the horrid aberration. The others were just as absorbed in the tale as she was, though they lacked the trauma of true memories to darken the moment. The storyteller grasped an invisible blade and stabbed toward the stump on his other side. Liv recoiled, swearing she could hear the sound; /the wet snaps of cold-blooded veins as they pulled taut and gave./

Crab-crawling backward on her hands and feet, Liv pulled herself back towards the fire as though the warm light could banish the frigid memories.

“It’s okay, Liv. It’s dead. It’s gone,” she reassured herself, turning it into a mantra and curling her knees into her chest. Her mumbled chant was broken when the sound of someone settling in on her left startled her out of her loop. Beside her lay another of the reptilian visitors. Smaller, with a longer torso and more serpentine physique, this one had two frilled crests running down its neck as opposed to one. This one lay on the ground beside the fire and began to twist and turn its hands in the air above it. Liv was trying to suss some meaning out of the movements when Kermit began to speak again and the others turned their backs to the fire. When the warrior lent his singular hand to complement the movements, Liv finally put two and two together and looked away from the flickering light.

Long shadows stretched across the ground as curled digits and rolling knuckles formed a roiling, fluid shape. Kermit’s hand and wrist stalked across the earth in a spidery flurry before a digit snapped out towards the rolling shadow.

“Wait… I know what this is,” Liv whispered. “That’s not possible. You weren’t th-“

Her objection was silenced by the first familiar word she’d encountered thus far.

“Issk’aán na he… Iejartiss sá!”

The smaller of the pair turned its hands, creating an elongated humanoid silhouette on the ground.

Now the reason for the strange method of delivery became clear. They must have seen the shadowy silhouettes of the fight from somewhere to the east, backlit by Liv herself.

The tone of the storyteller’s voice became harsh and forceful as the humanoid shadow waved and danced, each motion being loosely mimicked by the tree. Soon the rolling mass returned, flaring out into tendrils that seemed to flicker and writhe in the shifting firelight, only for the tree to pounce upon it and elicit cheers from the watchers. They celebrated the battle like an epic of old, relaying the details of a glorious victory that ran counter to Liv’s memories of blind panic and terror.

Kermit stood from his place by the fire and walked over to the statue, pulling some kind of weapon from his belt. Gone was the flimsy fishing spear, replaced by a broad, flat, wooden club. The wedge-like edges of the thing boasted sharp-looking teeth of knapped jasper, giving the primitive sword a bloody and ferocious look. The massive reptile’s features were thrown into sharp relief by the fire, lending him a primal, predatory bearing. He looked down his snout at an unseen enemy, pointing his bloody neolithic blade at some tiny target of his ire, face drawn into a snarl.

With a jolt, Liv finally saw what was happening here, watching in shock and horror as he mimicked her own pose, pointing damningly downward at that old cultist.

“Iejartiss! Iejartiss! Iejartiss!”

The chanting sounded so similar to that which she’d heard when that little wooden idol had unraveled in her grasp. The name that the magic had burned into her mind, meaning and all. The watchers cheered him on. He basked only for a moment before turning to the statue and thrusting his blade into the air, joining in the chant. Only now did Liv finally stop to take a good look at the thing.

Its feral, toothy grin combined with the bulging, rage-filled eyes to give her a bloodthirsty look. A crest of the same jagged jasper that made up the warrior’s weapon made her look fierce and sharp and deadly. Her spiked leather jacket had been exaggerated by the artist into terrifying spines and armor, making her look less like a punk-rock artist and more like a literal demon.

Liv stared at the new idol in horror as her stomach knotted up. This was how they saw her?

Images of the three cultists being hauled away by Giermund came to her, unbidden. She hadn’t had to stomach to watch the deed, but she had felt the chemical rush their deaths had caused and hated herself for it. She’d told herself it was nothing personal. A necessity. Simple arithmetic…

Now she was looking through a mirror, darkly; and the beast that was looking back was all too deserving of the name they’d given her.

Iejartiss. Blood-Warrior.

She’d once sat before the ravens and claimed an aversion to violence, calling herself an artist. She’d wondered how and why the gods would have chosen her of all people, for this. This hungry, ferocious stone demon was a physical testament to her hypocrisy. The truth had just slapped her in the face, and she was feeling the sting.

She had wanted to be peaceful. She’d worn the persona of the harmless artist like a cloak, warding off the cold harsh reality. As cold as the stone mirror before her. This was what this new world had made her into…No. Even before the thought had fully formed in her mind, she could practically feel the stone demon’s judgment. Its feral grin perforated her lie with unbidden memories. Fired like arrows tipped with truth, they peppered her from within and poked holes in the comforting stories she told herself.

She had always claimed to only fight in self-defense, but the feral idol giddily reminded her of the perverse satisfaction she’d taken in it. She protested that she’d never set out to cause anyone harm. The hungry statue mockingly asked her why, then, had she had a knife on her the night she was killed? Whatever had caused her demise, she certainly hadn’t hesitated to confront it with a switchblade in hand.

She hadn’t wanted to kill those cultists… Had she? Was this what she really was? The ravens had seen it. These people saw it. She could try to lie to herself, sure. She could deny it all day long. But what was the point? After all…

“It’s not like anyone can hear me, anyway...”